THOUSANDS OAKS – Les Snead shifted uncomfortably in his chair. As speculation swirled since the Super Bowl around the condition of Todd Gurley’s knee, Rams brass had largely avoid addressing the subject. But in a sitdown with reporters earlier this week, Snead, the team’s general manager, was repeatedly asked to clarify the status of the Rams’ $60-million running back.

He would not provide a definitive answer. Asked specifically about a report from The Athletic which suggested Gurley had arthritis in his knee, Snead quipped back, “That would be good then, right? All he would have to do is take Aleve.”

When pressed to confirm or deny the veracity of the report, Snead again tiptoed around it.

“With all NFL players when it comes to trying to be fresh at the end of the year, there is an element of probably shades of gray of how fresh you are and what that reason is,” Snead said. “So I would counter your, ‘It’s either a yes or a no.’ I’m not sure you’ve ever gone through a 16-game NFL season, but if you have you probably would understand that shade of gray.”

That uncertainty, as it pertains to Gurley’s status, is likely to persist through the offseason. But if the Rams star running back does indeed have arthritis in his knee, nearly five years after he tore his ACL in his final season at Georgia, it could suggest that Gurley’s best days as a running back might already be behind him.

Arthritis, in the most basic sense, refers to inflammation of a joint. But it’s often used more generally to describe pain due to loss or deterioration of cartilage around a joint. For those who have suffered serious knee injuries, arthritis is often a common occurence later in life.

“On a long term basis, more than half of those people, 20 years later, have some arthritis,” said Dr. Timothy Gibson, an orthopedic surgeon and medical director of the MemorialCare Joint Replacement Center at Orange Coast Medical Center.

But to be faced with arthritis at 24, just four seasons into a promising NFL career, Gibson added, would suggest it’s “very likely there was some (cartilage) damage at the time of the ACL injury.” Any such damage increases the likelihood that Gurley’s knee has less mileage left than the Rams, who handed him a massive contract last summer, might have hoped.

“I don’t know exactly, medically, when you categorize what arthritis is,” Rams coach Sean McVay said, later adding, “I do know just from the amount of work he’s had, there’s been a wear and tear on that knee.”

Several teams did have questions ahead of the 2015 NFL Draft about the long-term viability of Gurley’s knee. The Rams selected him 10th overall, regardless, and over the past four seasons, their risk has been handsomely rewarded, as Gurley won Offensive Player of the Year and was twice named an All-Pro while racking up 6,430 total yards and 56 touchdowns.

That high usage, though, finally seemed to take a toll at the end of last season. Gurley missed the final two games of the season with inflammation in his knee and was never quite the same after that. In the NFC championship, he was sidelined in favor of newly acquired backup C.J. Anderson, and in the Super Bowl, he managed just 35 yards on 10 carries. Questions about the health of Gurley’s knee have been swirling ever since.

Even the Rams don’t seem entirely sure of Gurley’s status. After the Super Bowl, the organization consistently downplayed Gurley’s injury. But since, they’ve begun to maintain that “wear and tear” was to blame for his ineffective conclusion to the season.

At the NFL Scouting Combine two weeks ago, McVay said that the Rams hadn’t considered surgery for Gurley, and he hadn’t been made aware of any plans for stem cell treatment, which one report suggested was a possibility for Gurley. Stem cell treatment is still relatively unproven. Microfracture surgery, meanwhile, would almost certainly require Gurley to miss an entire season, with no guarantee that he’d ever be the same running back again.

Whether Gurley can ever match what he did in his first four seasons could largely depend on how his knee responds from here. When asked if he was concerned Gurley may not be the same player, given the wear and tear on his knee, McVay shook his head.

“I absolutely wouldn’t say that yet,” he said.

Still, the Rams now understand they need a viable second option in the backfield. The team is still watching the market for Anderson, who emerged at the end of last season in Gurley’s stead. They also put an original-round tender on reserve back Malcolm Brown, who broke his collarbone last December. As the only two running backs the Rams are currently considering, whomever returns is sure to play a significant role, as the team dials back Gurley’s carries next season.

But arthritis, if that is what Gurley is dealing with, can be managed. Inflammation, if treated properly, can subside. Neither is as uncommon for NFL running backs as you might think.

“If they can control the pain, he could be effective,” Gibson said.

With Gurley and his injury history, that’s long been the focus for the Rams training staff. But if he’s now faced with arthritis in that previously injured knee, his long-term prospects at one of the most taxing positions in professional sports become a bit more ominous.

“The damage to the cartilage, once you have it, it doesn’t ever become normal again,” Gibson said. “It will only get worse.”

Ryan Kartje is a sports features reporter, with a special focus on the NFL and college sports. He has worked for the Orange County Register since 2012, when he was hired as UCLA beat writer. His enterprise work on the rise and fall of the daily fantasy sports industry (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/industry-689093-fantasy-daily.html) was honored in 2015 with an Associated Press Sports Editors’ enterprise award in the highest circulation category. His writing has also been honored by the Football Writers Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ryan worked for the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times and Fox Sports Wisconsin, before moving out west to live by the beach and eat copious amounts of burritos.